The suburban prejudice (3)

Some closing thoughts, for the time being, on the case of Ilan Halimi, now that the man suspected of leading the gang of kidnappers and killers is in French custody – and reportedly promising to explain himself.

Youssouf Fofana, who is said to have admitted playing a part in Ilan's abduction while denying being his murderer or that the crime was anti-semitic, will sooner or later have his day in court. His views so far, if quoted accurately, vary from notions of grandeur ("I am a soldier in the new army") to a little rant about the "mediatisation" of the affair and a meaninglessly irrelevant comment about blacks dying daily in Africa.

And all the while, the steady drip of information from the investigation leads towards the theory of anti-semitism, without being conclusive. What seems to have been more or less established matches the initial view of Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister. That is to say, the gang was motivated by greed and acted on a Jews-equal-wealth basis.

I acknowledge that relatives of Ilan have spoken of passages from the Koran being recited over the phone to accompany ransom demands, but prefer to reserve judgment on how many of the gang (20 or more suspects have now been rounded up) had a single political, philosophical or sectarian thought in their heads. This is not because I have too soft an outlook to see any bad in Muslims, but because the snippets of information we have received to date prove little.

From what I have read or heard about the crime, there is not much to mitigate the roles of those who took part. But it may, in the end, be necessary to assess the extent of anti-semitic motives, and make suitable distinctions between different defendants.

It may involve identifying the sort of differences most of us can see between the jump-out-of-the-dark serial rapist and the opportunist who takes advantage of circumstances but is still a rapist. And in any group of 20 or more people accused of crimes arising from common endeavour or purpose, there are bound to be disparities in levels of culpability.

On some of the points raised in response to my earlier posts, I am relieved that most readers did NOT reach the conclusion that I had minimised the school stabbing, concealing the ethnic origins and implied motive of the attacker, or in any way made light of Ilan's ordeal.

For those who missed it first time round, I described Ilan's treatment as unspeakable and also noted France's guilty conscience in its relations with Jews.

I know all about the spate of anti-semitic incidents in France because I wrote about them, having visited the school where Israel was stabbed and followed up other incidents in Paris, Lyons, the Alsace and elsewhere. I am also familiar with the questionable treatment by France of an elderly Jewish lady whose family's assets were seized during the Second World War, because I wrote at length about that, too.

But I was equally conscientious, I hope, in reporting the concerns of a young Muslim woman suffering the agony of having her parents, three brothers and one brother's closest friend detained as terrorist suspects (two of them since freed though I make no comment on the guilt or inocence of the others). And in organising the Telegraph's coverage of an Algerian's successful fight against extradition from the UK to America (accused, on the flimsiest of grounds, of involvement with Sept 11 hijackers).

Without stooping to the racist abuse freely available in cyberspace, I have no time for mobs who sack an embassy because of a few images published far away, in a country they have no obligation to visit, but see no need for protest of any kind when girls are beheaded on their way to school for being Christians, or planes are flown into buildings full of people or hostages are captured, terrorised and killed.

But nor will I demonise all devotees of a religion because of the actions of an evil fringe of adherents with nothing positive to offer. If this puts me in the dock for being laughably European and liberal, I am guilty as charged.